ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces the main themes, objectives and structure of the book and sets out a theoretical framework for theorising development as an apparatus or assemblage that comprises a complex ensemble of institutions, discourses, resource flows, programmes and projects. It reviews and critically engages with post-development scholarship and explores the pursuit of development as a form of governmentality. The chapter makes a case for thinking geopolitics and development relationally as a nexus and underlines the need to situate development historically, culturally and geographically. It also outlines the value of critical geopolitics and post-colonial scholarship in making sense of the political geographies of development past and present and introduces and explains the book’s Afrocentric focus.
